Hot August Summers
by peetasbunmyoven
Summary: AU Katniss and Peeta are best friends. But since one hot August summer when they were eighteen Katniss realized her heart wanted more. Rather than risk her heart and losing her Peeta time passes but one night 6 years later it all comes to a head.


"Don't worry about her seriously! She is a self-important entitled little user and a serious bitch! And believe me being a bitch myself I can attest to it. You're too good for her Peeta. You deserve so much more." We are both leaning and I'll be honest swaying a little as I unlock my front door.

His head is leaning against the frame his eyes closed when finally it clicks and swings open. I look at his profile, his soft parted lips, creased brow, and clenched jaw. I hate seeing him in pain and suddenly the urge to hunt down that cunt with her ridiculous name and even more ridiculous attitude is overwhelming. Peeta must sense this because suddenly his blue eyes meet mine," all right tiger calm down." He walks past me into the house squeezing my shoulder as he passes.

My heart races rapidly from the small touch of his hands. I can feel their imprint like a scorching heat through my shirt. I exhale on a huff and follow behind him slamming the door in frustration as I do. The multitude of tequila shots is coursing like lightening through my veins and I have no outlet for the ridiculous if not desperate physical attraction I have for my currently heartbroken best friend.

I find him already slumped on the end of the couch a beer from the fridge in hand. "Thanks for tonight," he says on a sigh. He runs one of those beautiful hands through his hair and then runs it down to rub under his shirt across his stomach. I swear watching his hand move is fucking mesmerizing up and down exposing just enough of the course sandy hairs that disappear beneath his jeans.

"You know it's not a problem." I plop down next to him on the cushion kicking off my shoes as he pulls my feet into his lap. I love when he does this, Peeta likes my feet. My toes are always painted a muted rich orange which is his favorite color and sets off the olive tone of my skin. I know he thinks nothing of this but what it does to my body when he simply and innocently touches the arch of my foot is embarrassing.

If I am being honest I'm not sure when my body became so aware of Peeta's. We had known each other since we were five but weren't yet friends. He was just this little cherub of a boy that smiled at me sweetly in class and walked with a slight limp. Most of the students didn't seem to notice or care if anything it made him more endearing. Besides he always brought the best cookies for all of us on his birthday.

As a surly, isolated, and unfriendly child his generosity with his smiles and cookies to me never went unnoticed. By the time we were eleven everything changed in one afternoon. My mother sent me to the bakery his family owned to pick up some bread for the week. She was always sending me on errands that when I think about it was ridiculous for someone my age. When my father passed it seemed I was expected to co-parent my little sister and pull the weight of an adult.

A heaviness that if anyone cared to look close enough they would visibly see sitting upon my shoulders pulling me down to earth. I remember most everything about that day. The way the afternoon light was bleeding into evening. How loud the ding of the bell sounded in my ears when I opened the bakery door. The overwhelming smell of rich yeast, and cinnamon, that seeped into my skin and down my lungs. I felt like with each breath it would smother me but I would die happy.

At the sound of the bell Peeta's head turned his eyes lighting up in surprise. I avoided looking back at him instead looking behind the display case. "Hey Katniss can I help you with something, I'm in charge of the counter for a few?" "Yeah my Mom sent me I need a loaf of bread for our sandwiches this week. The sourdough please." He had to stand on a stool to reach and on his way down his foot must have slipped because both the boy and the bread tumbled to the ground.

With a red face Peeta jumped to his feet but instead of facing me he turned to the door leading back into the bakery. He must have anticipated what was coming. A woman burst through the door taking in the bread on the floor, the upended stool, and me waiting behind the counter. "You clumsy idiot! Is there anything you can honestly manage? Ten minutes I asked you to watch the counter for ten fucking minutes and you still manage to be worthless!"

I watched with wide eyes as Peeta flinched with each of her words as if she were physically striking him. Each insult like a lash to his soul, they were cutting him so deep and raw and I could see it in his stance and feel it in the expression on his face. Something lit me from inside it was like an ignited flame that burst from my chest as it heaved, horrified, and raging until it burst from within me. I couldn't take it for another minute. I couldn't listen to his mother tear into her son's heart for another moment.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up you bitch!" I froze unable to believe the words I was thinking literally feeling inside me had actually made their way out of my mouth. Peeta just gaped at me; his beautiful sweet eyes so wide they watered yet never blinked never looked away from mine. His mother stood silent and seething turned to me. "Little girl get out of my building now, you worthless piece of seam filth." I stood my ground for a good ten seconds never looking away from Peeta's face and then turned and left.

I was half a block away when his slight uneven but loud gait caught up with me. "Katniss!" Hold up a minute." He rounded in front of me and grabbed my wrists, "why? Why did you do that?" I immediately straightened on the defense. He noticed my posture and shaking his head clarified, "No I mean that was amazing but you didn't have to do that. You are the bravest person I know." This brought a blush to my cheeks but I couldn't help smiling. His face was so close and open and earnest. "It was nothing, you didn't deserve that you're so nice. Besides she was being a bitch. I just told her so." If possible his smile grew. Then he handed me a bag I hadn't noticed which in it held a single loaf of sourdough. "Don't worry it's not the one I dropped, I grabbed another when my Mom left to go upstairs. It seems being called on her bitchiness really took it out of her."

A choked laugh escaped through my nose in a horrible cross between a giggle and a snort. If it was possible the red of my cheeks actually deepened. But Peeta just grinned so wide I would have sworn his round cheeks would burst with it. "Do you want spend tomorrow after school with me? His voice was so sure and full of such a contagious anticipation that I agreed immediately shocking even myself. That was the beginning of what has become the most important relationship in my life outside of me and my sister. The day Peeta became my best friend.

There is something about Peeta Mellark that makes me willing to do anything to protect him. Not just physically let's face it he can take of himself, but I'm an avenging angel of my Peeta. The person that he is. Of his heart, the soul of his being. Peeta is the most genuine, generous, example of humanity I have ever met. I think I saw it at eleven and continue to everyday of our friendship after. I see it while I watch his profile right now. That's why I can't stand it that some bitch has hurt any part of him.

"Stop scowling, or at least share what's rolling around in your head that has you so pissed off." He's smirking at me, he knows I hate when he smirks at me. Okay honestly it both irritates me and affects my panties but that's neither here nor there. He lifts an eyebrow and I can hear him in my head saying, "I'm waiting..." "Okay why do you do this to yourself? Why do you pick these girls, these women who are so obviously not worth your time setting yourself up to be hurt, and drowning in tequila with me on my sofa. "Maybe I like ending up on your sofa." the smirk again.

"Dammit Peeta I'm serious! Her name was fucking Glimmer; she looked like some saturated sex doll, who treated you like absolute shit. What's worse you let her. Why? Was falling into a huge set of breasts at the end of the day worth it? I've heard her dissect everything about you in some bullshit negative way time and time again and it took every ounce of what little self-control I have not to notch an arrow straight into her double d chest, but you always took it. Until now when she I might add not you decides to end it and what your devastated? Stop doing this. Stop choosing women who don't value the fact that they get to be with the most incredible person I have ever known. Stop choosing women like your mother!"

Somewhere in the middle of my tangent I must have stood up and began pacing across the room. I end up facing him on the couch panting and panicked from my words. With crazy and wild eyes I search his face, but I can't get a read on him. He's looking down at his hands, his jaw is clenched, and his breathing is measured. Finally he looks up at me he looks serious but calm. "I'm the most incredible person you've ever known?" He's watching me like he's seeing someone else. Nervously I shift my gaze and tug on my sweater. "Of course you are Peeta, I love you. You're my best friend I just want you to be happy. Okay?"

Peeta just keeps intently looking at my face. I kick out at his shoe with a smile trying to lighten the inexplicable tension I feel," Now come on you sure as shit cannot drive after all of that Cuervo let's get some sleep. You can make me French toast in the morning and we'll list all the other specifics of why I think Glimmer is Satan personified and will be sorry to lose you."

He can't help but smile at this and shuffles behind me to my bedroom. Sharing a bed is nothing new to us. It's just been sweet torture to me since my hormones and my heart merged at age eighteen. It's one thing to notice your best friend. Peeta is hot. Like really really attractive all my girlfriends since we were thirteen have wanted him hot. So I always figured thinking about him naked in a curious sense was natural right? Enjoying his hugs a little too long was just pheromones, and estrogen competing in a primitive dance within my body. The real trouble was waiting for me the summer I was eighteen. The summer my heart realized what I guess my body already knew.

That August had been the hottest I can ever remember. When Peeta and I weren't working we spent as much time together as possible. Nights spent watching movies in my room, weekends camping and swimming at the pond where all the kids favored beating the temperature. We would sit up on the roof outside my window talking all night about whatever we could think of. It was like with adulthood and its uncertainties looming we needed to purge ourselves completely of everything that made us who we were so it could exist and be validated. It's so funny what seems so important in August when you're eighteen.

All Peeta could talk about was our friend Madge Undersee. A sweet face girl who seemed to bloom late in our high school years into a real beauty. It was all he could stand to even be near her and was always making plans about making a move but never doing it. So as best friends it was my duty to listen to all these plans and then call him a pussy for not following through. It gave me on odd twinge when I thought of Madge and Peeta, but not one I was willing to acknowledge just yet. Besides twinges were my thing that summer.

While Peeta was swept up in imaginary romantic plans I seemed to be existing in a haze of lust. It was like the heat itself was affecting the way I felt everything, saw, smelled, and tasted everything. I took it as my body deciding it was ready for sex. I wasn't exactly a physical novice I had had a handful of hook ups in high school but it seems I was a late bloomer and my body decided to overheat with the weather.

Having a guy best friend makes talking about sex all summer pretty easy. I mean he's thinking about it most all the time anyway. Peeta probably didn't notice me noticing but a teenage boy is so rarely subtle. I'd see him have to shift in his seat watching sexy scenes in movies, or stare into the cleavage of the also not so subtle skank leaning out the drive thru of Dairy Queen with his change. He'd check out the Mrs. Robinson look alike next door washing her car. I'm vain enough to admit there were plenty of times that summer Peeta Mellark would lose his train of thought when I stripped down to my favorite little orange bikini, not that I did it on purpose or anything.

While talking to Peeta about my plans to finally be devirginized was helpful, being around him always was not. The heat seemed to be playing with my head all summer because it did wonderful things to his body. His shirts seemed to always be sticking to different planes of his chest or his stomach. It bleached streaks into his curls that made his eyes seem Caribbean in color. And son of a bitch the freckles, anywhere the sun seemed to touch would scatter fucking freckles. That in my horny hormone induced state made me want to lick them.

These physical feelings led me to the logic that I wanted to have sex not with anyone but with Peeta. It made the most sense. I loved Peeta. I trusted Peeta. And fuck it all I was lusting for Peeta. It was a Saturday night and as per tradition we headed to the pond to make camp. These were my favorite nights. We knew we didn't have many left so they were bittersweet in there necessity. "So what's the topic for tonight?" We were sitting at the edge of the pond with a fire lit. We always lit a fire no matter what, camping without fire just would have been missing something. I loved the way it brought out his eyes. They were sapphire bright and shiny with laughter. His nose held those freckles I love so much and had gotten too much sun that day I knew it would peel and become an angry pink.

I sit knowing the topic I want to discuss but having no idea how to broach it. Peeta we are best friends, we are nothing more than friends so since I trust you and I know it won't change anything, Peeta I want to have sex. I'm ready to have sex, and I have decided I want to have sex with you. Yeah, can't just throw that out there yet so I give the cowardly response, "You choose tonight what we should talk about?"

"Why I'm going to miss you." He smiles that sweet sheepish smile that enchanted me even in grade school. "It's one of our last Saturdays and not to sound dramatic with adulthood hanging ahead I want to talk about us. About all the things we will miss, I will miss about getting to spend all the most important moments of my life with you."

Something about the way he looks when he says this starts a heat in my chest. Just a slight flicker that spreads throughout my body. I listen to all his favorite memories of us. It makes me tear up, and laugh until my body aches. Until it's my heart that begins to ache. Because Peeta is my best friend, he's the most important amazing person I know and love. I love him and here with the moon out and the firelight flickering across the elevations of his face my heart just plummets. With no warning and no breath entering or leaving my body there it is. I don't love Peeta. I'm in love with Peeta. I don't want to have sex with him. I want him to make love to me.

He's still laughing about a time we skipped school to start a business when we were twelve. He has no idea that my entire grasp on life has just been altered. That I have no tether to the earth right this moment and no idea what to do next. I have to tell him. I know that. I have to tell him tonight. I know I cannot possibly hold this in now that I realize how large it is inside me and how long it has been there.

He stands up suddenly. "Hey I'm going to grab my phone out of the truck I'll bring back the marshmallows. Be right back!" Smores...he's thinking smores while I'm trying to figure out how to tell him I think my future begins and ends with him, shit! Why didn't I see this coming? I did a lot of deep breathing in the five minutes he was gone, and psyched myself up. This is Peeta there is no reason to be nervous. Just tell him the truth, he loves me too.

I hear him before I see him he's so damn loud! I can't help but return the enormous smile on his face he looks so happy. "Katniss! Shit guess who just called me...that was Madge. Katniss she wants to go to a movie later tonight this is unbelievable. She said she's wanted me to ask her out all summer. I can't fucking believe it!"

I'm frozen, like statue what the fuck happened to her frozen. This isn't real. Tell me this isn't real. "Katniss! Did you hear me? You don't mind do you? If we pack up now I'll be able to pick her up instead of having to meet her there." I silently nod and just stumble through the motions. Luckily Peeta is too preoccupied to notice. He drops me off and says he'll call me tomorrow. He's too preoccupied to notice that for the first time my heart has broken.

I made a promise to protect not just myself and my heart that night, but Peeta too. We are too important to each other to risk fucking this up. We depend on one another we protect each other; we are the other's survival. It's something I have reminded myself of time and time again over the years. Each time my treacherous body or worse my treacherous heart has tried to convince me this could be real I have to remind myself no it cannot.

Peeta and I have a routine. Or else we know each other's routines in a way that makes us work in flawless, effortless, tandem. We go through motions of changing and getting ready for bed. I crawl across to the right side because he always sleeps on the left next to the open window. He gets the wall light; I turn on a lamp to read. He flips on his side to face me, and I turn and perform the swift magical act with my bra through my sleeve that all women have mastered by the time we are a teenager. The thought makes me laugh because Peeta used to stare when I did it mesmerized. Because for one all guys want to do is master a bra and we make it look simple and secondly and most simply it had to do with boobs.

I flop down on my pillow; it looks like Peeta is already asleep. Maybe I won't read tonight I decide as I burrow further down feeling his warm minty breath across the space. I know I need to sit up and turn the lamp off but I'm warm under my blanket. I can feel the cold breeze from the window as it blows across my shoulder and collarbone they must have popped out of the wide collar of Peeta's wrestling t-shirt I sleep in.

As I fight the internal war of uncovering and having to move the 11 inches to my lamp I feel a warm feathery touch tracing from where my neck meets my shoulder down to my collarbone and up again. A shivering figure eight that causes goose bumps to spring up and down my arm and an instantaneous wetness between my thighs.

"Katniss? Are you awake?" I keep my breathing as even as possible when I ask, "What is it Peeta?" "Why do you care so much? I mean tonight you were more of a wreck than me." His whispers are followed by a warm exhale of his breath, and a shaky inhale of mine. His fingers are starting to go wider across my shoulder and across the top of my chest he can reach, its hypnotic and if my eyes were open I swear they would roll back in my head. I don't know what he wants me to say I feel like if I dare to even try I will burst into so many pieces of myself I will never be put back together.

"Please tell me Katniss. I need you to tell me." "Because I love and care about you Peeta you know that." My whisper is barely audible and I feel like I can't even swallow. "I feel what you feel Peeta, when you feel it." He sucks in a breath, "Do you? Because Katniss I have felt so many things for you for so long."

I'm frozen again. His fingers on my neck seem suddenly heavy; I can feel my heart pounding into the bed through my back. What is he saying? He's moved so close I can feel him breathing behind my ear. "Look at me Katniss, please." I open my eyes and he is right there. I can taste his breath on my lips. Lips he is staring at. His fingers have moved up tracing along my jaw. His eyes find mine they are dark, questioning, and so intense. "Do you love me Katniss or are you in love with me?" I'm captivated by his stare and my body has begun to shake with the intensity of what I feel. It has been so long. I am so tired of fighting this. "Yes Peeta. In love with you, always."

He doesn't move at first and I can feel the tears beginning behind my eyes, when suddenly I feel his hand at my neck go still. His thumb brushes the side of my mouth and as the air literally shakes out of his chest he pushes his mouth to mine. All I can register is the heat of our breathing and the shaking of my hands as they dive and anchor into his hair. He lets out such a desperate and deep moan I feel it in my stomach. We could never slow this kiss no matter how hard we try. It's desperate and it's needy, it's everything.

Peeta rolls me onto my back as his tongue pushes into my mouth. He tastes like mint, and heat, and Peeta. I arch beneath him as his hands slide under my shirt. Yes! God yes I have wanted his hands on my body for so long. There is no hesitation as they cup my breasts and we moan at the same moment. I pull off his shirt and run my hands up his arms across his chest, and over his shoulders. Lifting me up he pulls mine off as well but seems to lose all focus the moment it's just me beneath him in nothing but my green lace panties.

His beautiful hair has begun to curl at the sides from sweat as he stares down at me. He's panting and I can feel him hard against my thigh. I want to arch and rub myself against him like a cat and wonder why he has stopped, I wonder if he's changing his mind. "Jesus Katniss. I have dreamed about this since I was sixteen. You are so fucking beautiful." My body wants to blush but all I can do is stare back into his eyes. They are dark now full of lust and purpose. I am so turned on I'm twitching beneath him. "Peeta, please."

Awakened from his reverence he wastes no time tasting my breasts making me keen and meet his hard thrusts through my panties. I run my hand down to cup him feeling his length and intense heat through his boxers making him groan against my chest. He pulls my panties down just enough to feel me. I want to be embarrassed by how wet I am covering my core and across my thighs but I have no coherent thought left as he circles me with precision and pressure but thrusting two of his delicious fingers deep inside. I nearly come immediately rising off the bed. Peeta just stares and breathes, stares, and breathes, as his fingers slide deeper and curl faster. He moans,"Fuck into my ear before latching onto my breast. I want to watch him, his mouth, and his hands but I can't.

My head is bowed back and I'm clenching his hair with one hand the sheets with the other. He adds his thumb and a steady pressure is building. Sweat is beading at my temples and my thighs don't know whether to bend or straighten, clench or shake. "Come for me Katniss." He whispers it and softly takes my ear between his teeth and I come apart, I arch, I can't breathe. When I finally do it stutters out of my body on a sob. I finally open my eyes and he's there. He's smirking.

I immediately pull him down kissing him with every fiber of every moment that I have ever wanted but never let myself have. He rolls onto his back pulling me with him. I kiss him everywhere. Across the bridge of his nose, behind his ears, the column of his throat. I take my time with every fucking freckle from his shoulders down to the band of his boxers. I pull them off as fast as I can desperate to see him, desperate to taste and feel him in my mouth. I know he will be beautiful because he's Peeta. I never hesitate and take him inside so fast I think he's going to shoot off the bed. "Fuck Katniss, uhhhhhh." I figure if I can get Peeta at a loss for words then well done me. He's not the only one who can smirk. I know he's too close so I stop because I have needed this since that August six years ago.

With a pop I release him and slide up his body to align it with mine. I look into his beautiful blue eyes and see into his soul. My Peeta. He holds my hip with one hand and slides the other up my back as I slide him inside me so deep I feel it in my heart. We both sigh, and moan, and I nearly cry from the release of so much pleasure so much, just so much of everything.

He kisses me long and hard as we begin to move. Rolling, then lifting, undulating my hips against his. The intensity, the power of the moment means we won't last long. He rises up enough to line up his face with my chest. He circles my breast with his tongue and I break with a cry, he stiffens a few thrusts behind me and comes with his face pressed to my heart.

"I love you. I love you Peeta, and I should have said something such a long time ago. I love your voice, I love your words, I love your humbleness, I love your laugh, your steadiness, I love the way you dance, your food...at this his laugh bursts against my chest. I do I love how loud you walk, how you describe everything like it's a fucking painting, that even with your mother you turned into the most loving human being I know. I love your stupid double knotted shoelaces and how long it takes you to retie them, that I freeze sleeping with you, your unsweetened tea even though we live in the south, that my orange toes turn you on, I love your blue eyes, I love your body, I love my best friend and how in his arms I am cherished, I am safe, I love you, I really fucking love you."

I am so overwhelmed I know I'm going to cry. He's still inside me but I'm inside his arms. "I love you Katniss. I fucking love you too. I loved your scowl and voice when we were five. Your strength and courage when we were eleven. Your silver eyes, and body when we were sixteen. And your loyalty and heart our entire friendship. I remember everything about you, and I can't remember ever not loving you. I just didn't think you felt that way about me. His smile is my Peeta smile and I meet his eyes. "I didn't think it could ever be real." I whisper. "It's real Katniss it's very real."

I smile into his hair. "I knew I loved you that hot August summer when I was eighteen. Your sweaty body did things to me." I can't help but giggle when I say this and I can feel him hardening inside me which shuts me up really quick. He fucking smirks. "Well good thing for hot August summers." I squeal as he flips me over, choking back both a laugh and moan as he kisses my shoulder. Damn right it's a good thing; it's a real good thing.


End file.
